Thursday, 3 April 2014

Ultimately, Reality is Personal

Yesterday morning Rabbi Lord Sachs presented a provoking
Thought for the Day on Radio 4. In light
of new research and development at Ohio State University into algorithms that
identify human facial expressions, he asked what differentiates humans from
machines. A fascinating question to with
which all worldviews must come to grips, but which I think Christianity handles
in a more truthful and hopeful way, particularly in contrast to monistic faiths
and philosophies. Lord Sachs concludes
that the distinguishing feature of humans vis a vis technology is the particularity of love. Quoting his former philosophy tutor, Sachs
says:

We love individuals,
not types. We love what is unique and
irreplaceable, not what can be mass produced.
That is what gives love its poignancy: its inseparable connection with
the possibility of loss. It’s what makes
human life sacred: the fact that no one is a substitute for any other.

This calls to mind the dystopian vision of the film Never Let Me Go in which clones are produced and raised to ultimately perform the
task of supplying organs to their originators.
Loads of moral and ethical ideas here on the nature of what it means to
be human. I’d really like to hear how
monism addresses some of these. From
what I know of some of this thinking, reality and the particularity of the
individual are supposedly illusions which would seem to indicate that the clone
concept might not be much of a problem at all.
The particularity of love means that it is personal, that ultimate reality is between individuals/among
community. I think many people assume
that the foundational notion of compassion in Buddhism is akin to empathy or
love, but this isn’t the case. As Marcia
Montenegro explains on her website:

Many admire Buddhism because its teachings on ending suffering often include references to compassion. Compassion, karuna, arises from wisdom and in Buddhism, wisdom is "understanding or discernment of the Buddha's teaching, especially the teaching of anatta, no self." Compassion is the desire to free "all sentient beings" from rebirth. "Sentient beings" include all living creatures, including animals, residents of all the realms (similar to worlds of spirit beings), and demi-gods. One must be human to attain enlightenment, so compassion is needed for these non-humans (including demi-gods) to be reborn as human.

It seems that if the goal of monism is an ultimate reality where all life is freed from rebirth into enlightenment, then ultimate reality wouldn't be characterised by love, but perhaps something more akin to an endless void, dare I say a world of algorithms and nothing else.